Do You "Give" to "Get" from Others?
I was thinking about my friend Richard this morning and how he’s a giving person—with no strings attached. Richard gives out of the pure goodness of his heart. He never expects anything back in return, and this is really healthy behavior. His behavior is so different from what most of us codependents grew-up experiencing. We experienced lots of giving—with strings attached. What we learned about giving was this: You give to get. I definitely learned from my family that the true purpose for giving to others was to ensure that you received something back in return. In other words, I learned that it wasn’t OK for me to give myself the really important things in life, like love, kindness and other forms of self-care. If I wanted those things, I needed to smother other people with them. Once I did, I could legitimately expect that others should then reciprocate and give me all of the love and respect that I refused to give to myself. For much of my life, all of my giving t...